Get Retweeted These 9 Ways

One of the measures of your influence on Twitter is the number of times your followers retweet your tweets.

Viral marketing scientist Dan Zarrella, an avid Twitterer and author of The Social Media Marketing Book, spent nine months analyzing roughly 5 million tweets and 40 million retweets. Based on his scientific research, he offers these nine tips for getting retweeted:

--Link, but don't use Tiny URLs.

--Ask your followers to retweet your posts. "Please" and "retweet" were his third and fourth "most retweetable" words.

--Avoid idle chit-chat like what you're eating for lunch. Do NOT answer Twitter's question, "What are you doing?"

--Don't be stupid. Use words instead of abbreviations and emoticons. :-(

Reprinted from "The Publicity Hound's Tips of the Week," an ezine featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity. Subscribe at http://www.publicityhound.com/ and receive by email the handy cheat sheet "89 Reasons to Send a Press Release."